Backside Illumination (BSI) image sensor chips are replacing front-side illumination sensor chips for their higher efficiency in capturing photons. In the formation of the BSI image sensor chips, image sensors and logic circuits are formed in a semiconductor substrate of a wafer, followed by the formation of an interconnect structure on a front side of the silicon chip.
The image sensors in the BSI image sensor chips generate electrical signals in response to the stimulation of photons. The magnitudes of the electrical signals (such as the photo-current) depend on the intensity of the incident light received by the respective image sensors. The image sensors, however, suffer from non-optically generated signals, which include the leakage signals, thermally generated signals, dark currents, and the like. Accordingly, the electrical signals generated by the image sensors need to be calibrated, so that the undesirable signals are cancelled out from the output signals of the image sensors. To cancel the non-optically generated signals, black reference image sensors are formed, and are used to generate non-optically generated signals. The black reference image sensors, therefore, need to be blocked from receiving light signals.
The black reference image sensors are covered by a metal shield, which is formed on the backside of the semiconductor substrate, in which the image sensors are formed. Furthermore, backside metal pads are also formed on the backside of the semiconductor substrate for bonding or testing. The formation of each of the metal shield and the backside metal pads includes a deposition step and a patterning step. Accordingly, in the region that is directly over the image sensors, a metal deposition and an etch step is performed when the metal shield is formed, and a metal deposition and an etch step is performed when the backside metal pads are formed. The deposition steps and the etch steps may be performed using plasma. As a result, the image sensors may be damaged or degraded.